


Secrets

by vials



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Raoul Silva is Alive, Secret Marriage, brief angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-25 07:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7523941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James and Tiago once had a life together. After Tiago vanished, James didn't want to accept the inevitable. He got on with his life and years later met a man named Raoul.</p><p>(He isn't sure what to think, but James Bond is nothing if not loyal.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt fic I'm bringing over from my Tumblr (v1als).

Everyone had secrets. It was a given, really – James had known enough people over the course of his career to know that every single person he met was probably harbouring something, though admittedly a lot of the time it wasn’t anything interesting. It was incredible, really, the weight that some people could carry around without a single person knowing.

James’s secret was that he was married. 

Well, he wasn’t sure of the legality of that anymore. Or the legality in general, really, considering when he and Tiago had been together the world had been very different. But a marriage was essentially a ceremony of vows, of commitment, of devotion. They had had all of those. James had never seen the point of adding a piece of paper in there, like it could sum up everything they had been. Of course, James would sometimes find himself wishing for something official now, even after all these years. Pathetic, really, to think that he had been so vehemently against the whole thing and now he would probably kill for something solid that proved it had been real. He supposed grief could do strange things to a person.

He had tried to get over him. Of course he had. It had been years, and James wasn’t the sort of person who liked to dwell on things. But some things were impossible to ignore; some things were a weight, a physical entity that had to be carried, and he had come to accept that Tiago would always be with him in that respect.

*

At the beginning, he hadn’t known what Tiago did. He’d had no idea that the two of them would end up in the same job, even if that was a few years apart. Tiago had been very good at covering his tracks, always with a believable story. James wouldn’t have had much time to try and debunk them even if he had wanted to, thanks to his work with the Navy – and why would he want to debunk them? He trusted Tiago, and any career in the military would teach the lesson that sometimes secrets were meant to stay secrets.

Despite the secrets and the distance they had ended up inseparable. Tiago had an odd habit of showing up when James least expected it. It didn’t matter where in the world he was – Tiago would find him. He thought the man saw it as a game, really; there was always something so triumphant in his smile when he found him. James never did work out how he did it.

James still considered the best period of his life to be the time where their work had finally slacked off enough to give them several months where they had nothing to do except spend every moment with one another. They had lived together during that time – not officially, of course, but for all of those mornings, James had woken up with Tiago beside him. Perhaps the thing he was most proud of was the fact that he had never taken those mornings for granted. 

They had had the rings, they had said the vows. They had had a life together. It was a brief respite in a world that had no time for love.

*

They made it work. For years, they made it work. Between James’ assignments and rising up the ranks, and Tiago’s work doing god knows what on the other side of the world, they made it work. Letters and long distance phone calls became their lifeline; the occasional meeting in some middle ground country what they lived for.

Tiago was in Hong Kong, apparently. Lord knows what he was doing there. James never knew the details. All he knew was when Tiago would finally be coming home. 

A few months before that date, Tiago missed one of their regular phone calls.

He never called again.

*

James tried to get over it. He had always been a fan of just getting on with things. He was of the opinion that one could get over anything with the right amount of grit and determination; it had worked for him when he was eleven and newly orphaned, and it would work for him now. Pain was pain. It was never anything new. It would consume him for a while and then if he gave it nothing to feed on, it would fade.

He did his job. He got good. He got a better job. He was kept so busy that he could barely think; he saw things and did things that should have cut him deeper than they did. But every time he had so much as a moment to think, he thought of Tiago. The man had never left his side. James told himself it was because he didn’t have any answers; there was no closure. 

He had stopped wearing the ring. He knew where it was, but he stopped wearing it. He thought that would stop hurting, too, but it never did. He would feel it there even after he hadn’t worn it for years. It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch. 

Sometimes he would get angry. He always felt worse for that. But it was impossible to ignore. He had loved Tiago, and he had just vanished. He hadn’t even had the decency to give him any clues to go on; no chance to find answers. There was simply nothing.

*

They say time is supposed to heal all wounds, but they forgot about wounds that never healed right. The bones that didn’t set, the damage that is never corrected. What does time do to those? The dull aches in old broken bones that turned into an inability to walk; the old head injury that started with mild headaches and ended with crippling migraines and memory loss. Sometimes time aggravates wounds. Sometimes time provides what was needed to rip progress apart and send someone spiralling right back to the beginning.

Nothing proved this more than the years passing for James. There had been a time where he had been able to pretend, through various means, that he hadn’t been destroyed by Tiago’s sudden disappearance. He had been able to pretend for weeks, putting the slip ups down to nothing more than a bad day. As time went on, the weeks became days, and the days hours. Now it didn’t matter what James did. Tiago was an ache that wouldn’t go away, not matter how many strangers he fucked or people he killed.

Perhaps he could ride it through. It was all James could think of – perhaps it was just a midlife crisis of sorts, the realisation that he had now lived longer without Tiago than they had been together. He would just push through, and hope he didn’t kill himself trying to forget.

*

It turned out that he didn’t care what it took to forget. When the bullet slammed into his chest and knocked him off the train and into the water below, all James could think about was the fact that it barely hurt. There had been so much more that hurt worse, that hurt deeper. What was a bullet when there was no heart to hit? Even that first breath of icy water paled in comparison. James was almost relieved.

Looking back, he knew somebody had pulled him from the water. He couldn’t remember who. He supposed the blood loss and the injuries had been messing with his head, because he was sure that it had been Tiago.

(Later he remember that the person hadn’t looked exactly like him – same face, same body type, but far too blonde, and blue-eyed. Clearly his brain had given in to wishful thinking. James was angry, but he supposed he couldn’t blame himself. He had been through enough near death experiences to know that they made little sense.)

*

He spent a while drinking himself to death in a beachside bar. A fitting end to a life that had started out so wonderful, he thought. He had had all the luck in the beginning – a career he enjoyed, a man he loved. He guessed he’d used up all his advantages then, and now he was doomed to die in this shithole.

It had been worth it, of course, because Tiago had been worth everything, but he still allowed himself the occasional moment to be bitter.

He remembered how Tiago had always found him, no matter where in the world he ended up. Turned out that this time it was no different.

*

His name was Raoul now, and he was blonde. Privately James knew his gut instinct had been right – had had seen him that day, when he had been pulled out of the river, but he had had no idea where admitting that would had lead him. He never thought it would have lead him here; to walking along a quiet beach as dawn was beginning to break, Raoul walking along beside him while he tried to work out something to say.

“You could have bloody told me,” he had eventually said, and Raoul just laughed.

*

Any anger that James had had towards Raoul – and admittedly, there was a lot – faded once Raoul had had the chance to explain.

Perhaps “faded” was a lie; more like it had redirected itself, concentrated itself until it was probably the angriest James had ever felt. He hadn’t realised how tense he was until Raoul had gently touched his shoulder, his hand warm and solid and reassuring, and James had relaxed into his touch and tried to remember how to breathe.

“You have to understand why I didn’t tell you,” Raoul murmured, his hands rubbing circles into James’s aching muscles. “I had no idea how you would react. I was barely myself. I was so different to how you would have remembered me. I was terrified you would see me and be horrified. I meant to find you again, of course I did. But it never felt like the right moment. I was frightened you wouldn’t recognise me.”

“What makes now the right time?” James asked. He had forgotten how distracting Raoul’s touch could be. “Why now?”

“Because,” Raoul said simply. “You understand now. She has done the same to you.”

*

James wanted to say that there had been some kind of moral dilemma involved; at least one moment where he had reconsidered his decision to vanish with Raoul. Truth was, there was no such thing. He had made his mind up from the moment he had seen him – he was never letting him go again. For the first time in years, James felt connected to the world. There was no more searching for answers in things that could never provide them; no more feeling grateful just to get a few hours where he didn’t feel the weight of what happened crushing him. Oh, Raoul was different, make no mistake, but not in a bad way. He still felt familiar. James thought it was a case of all the same parts being rearranged. He wondered if he was the same.

It was incredible, really, how quickly they fell back into life together. They had always been step in step, and it had never been more apparent than now. The first time James woke up with Raoul beside him he thought it was a dream. When he realised that it wasn’t, he was relieved to find that he didn’t take this for granted, either. Every time was like waking up for the first time. James had forgotten what it was like to feel so alive.

*

If James had any doubts, any at all, they vanished the first time he saw Raoul’s scars. The anger had flared up inside him again, white hot, and the only way he had been able to calm himself had been by running his fingers over them, as gently as possible, knowing that in order to keep his touch gentle he had to focus on something other than the anger. Raoul had been tense at first, not daring to look at him; it was a relief when James felt him relax, when his voice stopped wavering as he spoke.

“They tried so hard to kill you,” James murmured, stroking along a particularly thick scar at Raoul’s side. Raoul watched him, his gaze steady and so _alive_ , and James wondered if this was what it was like to feel blessed.

*

They watched the footage of MI6 burning on the news and James felt something loosen in his chest the longer he watched. He ran his thumb over the ring on his finger and took a deep breath. It wasn’t enough, not yet, but it was a start. He wasn’t sure where the end would be. He didn’t think he would ever be able to hurt the world enough for what it had done to Raoul.

“Quite a sight, hmm?” Raoul asked, and James nodded. 

“Impressive.”

“There’s still a lot to do.”

“I know.”

“What do you think is going to happen at the end of all this, James?”

They looked at one another; James managed a small smile.

“I have no idea.”

*

There was an electricity in the air that James knew Raoul was picking up on, too. Perhaps that was why he was also awake, breathing steadily beside him but fooling no one.

“We might not come back from this,” Raoul eventually said, his voice quiet. “You do know this, yes?”

“Yes,” James said, staring into the darkness. “So long as it’s both of us.”

Movement, and then Raoul’s lips against his. In the darkness, it was easy for James to pretend that was all there was.

*

Months later, and James found himself drinking on another beach. The difference was that this time he wasn’t alone, and he had no intention of drinking himself to death, either. Odd, to drink because he enjoyed it, because it was fun to do with company, and not for any other reason that he would barely let himself acknowledge.

“Did you ever think we would be here?” Raoul asked. He looked strange for Raoul now, but more familiar than ever to James – his hair natural again, his eyes back to their warm brown-green, his skin dark. He was sitting in the sand, wiggling his bare toes in it; there was something almost childlike about it that made James realise just how relaxed the man was these days. 

“No,” James answered, matter-of-fact. “I didn’t think you would survive that mess. I didn’t think you wanted to.”

“For a time, I didn’t,” Raoul said, and James nodded, taking a long drink. It wasn’t a surprise to him, really, though it was still odd to hear it acknowledged out in the open. The realisation of how close he had come to losing him again was enough to make James feel cold, even with the warmth of the sun and the sand and the person sitting pressed against his side.

“You wanted to die with her,” James said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” Raoul said. 

“But you changed your mind.”

“I didn’t see any alternative,” Raoul said, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around his knees. He looked out to sea, squinting slightly in the glare of the sun. “For a long time, she was all there was. It was consuming. I didn’t know what I would fill the gap with once she was gone.”

“And then?” James asked.

“And then you,” Raoul said, looking at him, and James smiled.

“Do you think, for all those years, we were just trying to fill in the gaps?”

“I think so.”

Raoul let himself fall down so he was laying on his back; James stuck the bottle into the sand beside him and then lay down too, staring up at the sky. For a long moment they were silent.

“I don’t think time has ever moved this slowly,” Raoul said, and James let out a sigh, closing his eyes. All he could hear was the ocean and Raoul’s steady breathing.

“I hope it never speeds up again.”


End file.
